Paani ka tu bulbula tera kaun thhikaana
Posted on: May 10, 2023
This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in other sites without the knowledge and consent of the web administrator of atulsongaday.me, then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
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Today’s song is from the film Kanchan-1941.
1941 was the first year in the second decade of the Talkie Era and it was the beginning of the emergence of a New film industry. When Talkie started in 1931, for many years after that, the films were made by the people who had done work in the Silent films. These films had a spill over for the silent era artistes. Once the films started talking,most silent artistes who could not speak Hindi or Urdu automatically disappeared. Thus started the influx of new actors who could speak Hindi and sing songs, in whatever way they could. Intelligent directors like V Shantaram,Bhavnani, Sohrab Modi, Chandulal Shah, Himanshu Rai, B N Sircar, L V Prasad and a host of Gujarati directors understood that the Talkie needs a different treatment than silent films. Music directors from stage dramas tried their hand in composing film music.
In the next 8-9 years, there was a perceptible change in the film making, acting, singing, and composing music in the films that were made. Quality artistes from the silent era continued for some more years – finally giving way to the new artistes. The 30s and the 40s mostly differed in film music and story contents. The new blood composers like Anil Biswas, C Ramchandra, Naushad, Ghulam Haider, K Datta, Hansraj Behl, Bulo C Rani, Gyan Dutt and many more replaced the Parsi, Marathi and Gujarati drama music to more acceptable lilting songs. Many musical films were made and some everlasting songs were composed by these people. At the end of the 1940s, one more major change in the film industry took place due to Partition. Let us see some important films.
JBH Wadfia became Chairman of the Film Advisory Board. He produced the First Sindhi film “Ekta”-1940. His film Court Dancer was also in English.
Asra– Debut of actor director N A Ansari.
Behan– Mehboob directed this film having an incest suggestive story.
Chandan– Debut of S N Tripathi as an MD
Chitralekha– First big success of Kidar Sharma. Mehtab’s bath scene caused a ripple.
Dhandhora– Actor comedian Charlie directed the only film.
Doctor– Pankaj Mullick gave excellent songs. First popular song with woof beats-‘ Chale pawan ki chaal ‘.
Jhoola– One of the most successful films like kangan and bandhan, starring Ashok kunmar and Leela Chitnis.
Kanchan– First composed song of naushad-” Bata do koi”
Khazanchi– A milestone in musical revolution with Punjabi Theka, by Ghulam haider. Debut of Shamshad Begum in Hindi films.
Lagan– Saigal, as usual, gives good songs.
Mala– was remade as ‘ Amar-54’ with music again by Naushad only. Jayant played the same role in both films.
Naya Sansar– Story of Newspaper world. A novelty. Ashok Kumar’s famous cigarette smoking in films started from this film, solving his problem of ‘ what to do with the hands during acting’ !
Nirdosh– Mukesh sings his first song.
Padosi– Last film of V Shantaram before leaving Prabhat. A Landmark film. ” Kaisa chhaya hai ujala” is a popular chorus song.
Pardesi– Debut of actress Anjali Devi (not the southwali) with real name ‘Durgesh’
Radhika– Debut of Nalini Jaywant.
Raj Nartaki– Ambitious Wadia film in English , Bangla and Hindi. Released in the USA by Columbia Pictures of Hollywood.
Sangam– Amritlal Nagar’s first film as a writer. He did 18 films as writer and Lyricist.
Sikandar– A Magnum-Opus from Minerva. Chorus song- ” Zindagi hai pyar se” is very popular.
Taj mahal– Debut of Baby Suraiya as an actress.
Sasural and Ummeed were 2 films in which Noorjehan senior acted and sang. However these films are usually wrongly included in the filmography of Malika E Tarannum Noor jehan. She entered Hindi films only with the film Khandan-1942 at Lahore.
Under this scene the film Kanchan-1941 was made by Chitra productions, Bombay. It was produced by Leela Chitnis and C.R.Gwalani. The entire film was shot in the studios of Ranjit Movietone, using their technical staff like cinematographer, editor etc. This film is important because of one song from this film – ” Bata do koi ” sung by Leela Chitnis. This song was the first composed and recorded song of Music Director Naushad, although his first film ‘ Premnagar-1940′ was released much before film Kanchan-41.
There is a short but interesting history to this song.
D.N.Madhok,who was a good friend of Naushad in his struggling days had full faith in his capabilities as a composer and took Naushad to Chandulal Shah.He offered to employ him for his forthcoming film.Naushad prepared a tune for Madhok’s bhajan,”Bata do koi kaun gali gaye shyam”.However the film was shelved.
When Naushad assisted Gyan Dutt for the Punjabi film ‘Mirza sahiba’ in 1938,Gyan dutt heard it and used it later in Kanchan in 1941.
Although Premnagar was released in 1940 as Naushad’s first independent film,the above song is the first recorded song of Naushad,independently prepared.
Gyan Dutt was a noble soul.He did give the credit to Naushad for this song. The credits of the film mentioned both names,Naushad as well as Gyan Dutt as Music Directors,though Naushad’s filmography does not mention this film at many places. (from an extract of D.N.Madhok’s interview.).
The cast of the film Kanchan-1941 was Leela Chitnis, Arun Ahuja, Mubarak, Pramila, Nagendra Muzumdar, Kesari, Tarabai (sister of actresses Sitara Devi and Alaknanda and mother of dancxer Gopi krishna) and others. The film released in august and its story appeared in the October issue of the film magazine Film India. Our Sadanand ji had given its edited copy as follows…….
A tailor (Nagendra Mazumdar) has two daughters – Kanchan (Leela Chitnis) and Kumud (Pramila). Both the daughters are in love with Kishore (Arun Ahuja), an educated young man. Kishore likes Kanchan and he reciprocates her feelings towards him whereas he avoids Kumud. Subsequently, Kumud works out a plot which forces Kishore to leave for a city job.
Now a landlord (Mubarak) enters the scene. He has a vicked manager who, for a very minor reason, burns down the huts of the farmers. Kishore comes to know about it and he rescues the farmers from the clutches of the fire. In this process, the father of Kanchan and Kumud also comes under the monetary trap of the landlord as he lends money to reset the house.
Since the father is not able to repay the loan, the landlord gives him options of either attaching his whatever the assets or to give one of his daughters in marriage. Kumud refuses to act as a pawn to the landlord. Kanchan agrees to marry the landlord thus sacrificing her love for Kishore.
When the arrangements for the marriage are going in full swing, Kanchan’s mother who had known the landlord from her younger days when she was in love with him, gives the landlord a long lecture of self-consciousness on the issue. The landlord has a change of heart and he withdraws himself as the bridegroom. Kanchan gets married to Kishore.
One of the cast members- Nagendra Muzumdar was the father of Music Director Ninu Muzumdar. Nagendra was born in a happy family in the year 1894 in Bombay. After his father died, “Pearl Dairy’ established by his father ran very well doing good business. Suddenly, Nagendra’s wife fell seriously ill and despite taking her full care, she expired. Due to neglect of the Dairy in this period, Dairy also closed down.
He shifted to Baroda and worked as a State Police Inspector.Later he worked as Watch and Ward Inspector in Baroda Railways. He left the job and started working as a hero in dramas of famous dramatist R.V.Desai. Heeralal, the owner of Laxmi Film Company, Bombay was impressed with his personality and took him to Bombay in 1926 to act in his silent films. Thus started his film career. In those days Silent films used to be completed within a month. He worked as a Hero in films of Laxmi, Jagdish and Imperial film companies.
In the same year, he directed a film ‘Paani mein aag’-1926, made by Royal Arts. Then came two more films made by Kaiser E Hind films. He also directed films for other companies. In all, he directed 15 Silent films by 1932. By then the Talkie had arrived. In the next 14 years he directed 12 Talkie films like – Ras Vilas-32, Sassi Punnu-32, Patit Pawan-33, mirza Sahibaan-33, Mera Imaan-34, Kala Wagh-34, Rangila nawab-35, Kimiyagar-36, Aaj ka Aladdin aka Aladdin II-36, Lehri lutera-37, Talwarwala-46 and Swadesh Sewa-46.
When offers for direction became few, he started acting in films. He acted in 12 films. When K L Saigal came to Bombay, Nagendra wanted to work with him. In the film Tansen-43, he did the role of Tansen’s (Saigal’s) father and he was very happy. The films that he acted in were Kanchan-41,Beti-41, Khilauna-42, Bhakt Surdas-42, Armaan-42, Tansen-43, Gauri-43, Adab Arz-43, Bharthari-44, Prabhu ka Ghar-45, Ghazal-45 and Dhanna Bhagat-45.
His last 2 films came in 1946, but his health was not cooperating for quite a few years. He gave up work and took a rest. However, he suffered from paralysis and died on 22-8-1951. His son Ninu Majumdar worked in Bombay A.I.R. as head of Gujarati programmes, since 1937. By the time Nagendra died, Ninu had already started working as a Music Director. As a Director, Nagendra had worked with the best of his times like, Master Vithal, Zubeida, Jillo, Billimorea brothers, Madhuri, Navinchandra, Durga Khote, Jairaj, Sultana, Noorjehan sr and such luminaries of those days. He worked for Ranjit, Imperial, Sharda, Lakshmi, Jayant Desai films, Yagnik films etc etc.
( Information for this article is collated from various sources like Listener’s Bulletins No. 40 of Feb-80 and No.145 of July 2010, HFGK, muVyz, Sapnon ke Saudagar by Vithal Pandya, Silent films by Dr.Verma, Lost Treasures by kamlakar P. and my notes.)
The heroine of this film Leela Chitnis had led a life full of ups and downs. She earned money, name and fame but her family life was not a happy one. When I read her autobiography in Marathi – चंदेरी दुनियेत ( Life in the world of Silver Screen ) I felt sympathy for her. Her son was a failure as a Hero and she died a lonely death in an Old age home in America where her son and relatives lived in luxury.
Today’s song is sung by the Music Director Gyan Dutt and the comedian Kesari, with a chorus. Enjoy…..
Song- Paani ka tu bulbula tera kaun thhikaana (Kanchan)(1941) Singers- Gyan Dutt, Kesari, Lyricist- D.N.Madhok, MD- Gyan Dutt
Chorus
Gyan Dutt + Chorus
Lyrics
Paani ka tu bulbula
tera kaun thhikaana
Paani ka tu bulbula
tera kaun thhikaana
paani se uthha hai pagle
paani mein mil jaana
tera kaun thhikaana
paani se uthha hai pagle
paani mein mil jaana
tera kaun thhikaana
Paani ka tu bulbula
tera kaun thhikaana
hawa ke ghode pe chadhke tu kaaahe ko itraaye
hawa ke ghode pe chadhke tu kaaahe ko itraaye
is jeewan ka maan kare tu
maut ka ek bahaana
tera kaun thhikaana
is jeewan ka maan kare tu
maut ka ek bahaana
tera kaun thhikaana
Paani ka tu bulbula
tera kaun thhikaana
khel khel le jeewan ka tu u u u
khel khel le jeewan ka tu
jab lagta ras le hai
khel khel le jeewan ka tu
jab lagta ras le hai
ye sapna ka jhonkaa aaya
aakhir ko mar jaana
tera kaun thhikaana
ye sapna ka jhonka aaya
aakhir ko mar jaana
tera kaun thhikaana
tera kaun thhikaana
haan tera kaun thhikaana
haan tera kaun thhikaana
Paani ka tu bulbula
tera kaun thhikaana
maayaa ke laade laade hai ae ae
maayaa ke laade laade hai
kaun kaam aayenge
maayaa ke laade laade hai
kaun kaam aayenge
hari naam ki ?? dagariya
badi door hai jaana
tera kaun thhikaana
hari naam ki ?? dagariya
badi door hai jaana
tera kaun thhikaana
Paani ka tu bulbula
tera kaun thhikaana
Paani ka tu bulbula
tera kaun thhikaana
tera kaun thhikaana
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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